Meeting of the Parliament 08 June 2016
That is the suggestion that we made at the time and I would like to be consistent with it, but we are not wedded to it. I simply say that we think that there should be an external review, not a review led by an internal Government official.
For completeness, I should say that, when the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 was passed, we did oppose the extension of the policy to young people aged between 16 and 18, and we still believe that that was a mistake.
We will pursue our position and amendment, which elaborates our points, but we accept that the Government has taken the first step in trying to fix the policy. However, if the Government position prevails, it must understand that Parliament is giving it the chance to fix the policy. If, months from now, no progress has been made, we will return to the point
What of the Tory motion? Well, the Tories’ position on the named person was clear all through the election. They were against it, and they said that they would be a strong opposition to it and that they would get it repealed, scrapped and binned. Ms Davidson climbed on a skidoo on top of Cairngorm to tell us how strong her opposition was. She climbed into little blue racing car at Knockhill to tell us how strong her opposition was. She then climbed on the back of a bemused and bewildered buffalo to tell us how strong opposition would be to the whole principle and not just its delivery. Then she sends Liz Smith to the chamber with a dog’s breakfast of a motion that does not actually oppose the named person as a policy but tries and fails to paraphrase our position.